Time To Keep It Simple serves as a record of my life as a traveler, writer, genealogist, photographer, target sports enthusiast, Rotarian, Mason, Jew, PR professional, and many other (mostly positive) things. In addition to this daily blog I am also the man behind the curtain (not named Oz) at gettingyourphil.blogspot.com and I previously blogged at fromgoytooleh.blogspot.com.

Friday, August 15, 2014

WTF Of The Week: Missouri Riots Edition

Throughout
this past week I have been listening to the radio, reading the articles, and
watching the news surrounding the protests, riots, and general insanity taking
place in Ferguson, Missouri. I have been hearing people talk about the
militarization of the police in the this country and I have been watching Al
Sharpton stirring up the crowds filling the streets in an attempt to further incite
the racial hatred that continues to brew. All of this stemming from a tragic
incident that no one is able to explain or even tell you exactly what happened.
The only thing we really know for certain is that a community is so pissed off
that they have decided to riot and tear apart their own community.

Yeah,
I don’t understand it either.

This
is one of those events that is playing out across this country fueled by visceral
reactions. Like many of the other polarizing heinous acts that we have all
witnessed, people are taking to social media, writing editorials, and screaming
from the sidelines without having any facts to support their intense feelings. This
incident has also served as the jumping off point to further the agenda of
those looking for a reason to leverage race to make and accusation of racism
and inequality…. like Al Sharpton.

This
just goes to show that the fact that we do have are being forgotten namely that
we doing know what happened and that tragedy doesn’t have a race. Insisting
that tragedy is associated with race is inherently racist. But this is what
debates have come to today especially those that touch upon, in any way shape
or form, politics. Knowing that we have a crappy President is, according to
today’s standards, racist. Forget the fact that he is just a crap President who
has played more rounds of golf since he took office than Tiger Woods (look it
up).

And
it is this liberal mentality that has many newspaper outlets scared. It doesn’t
matter if you are telling the truth about what is going on in Ferguson. If
people don’t like what the picture is portraying they will let you know and, in
the case of the Philadelphia Daily News, force the publication to change the
cover. After all, media is a business. And with newspaper sales in the toilet,
they can’t afford to alienate any readers. It’s not like the days when you your
audience was so expansive that you didn’t have to worry about losing part of
your audience. Of course, at that time people cared about the facts more than
the emotion.

Given
that the more confrontational and overall vocal portion of the audience is of
the liberal persuasion, this is a big reason why journalism is beginning to rot
away under heavy liberal bias required by much of the readership. Facts have
become secondary as credible sources and quality reporting have become a target
of doubt rather than news. Only time will tell if this will bring about the
eventual downfall of the media as we used to know it or if the media
polarization will soon neutralize and return to an unbiased state (or at least
get close).